Lauren K Jones
Owner
Lauren Jones started her artistic career as a company member with Longview Ballet Theatre in Longview, Texas, where she performed for four years. She was also accepted into the North Carolina School of the Arts summer programs in Winston-Salem two years in a row.
After graduating high school she attended Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, earning a Bachelor of Science in Biological Sciences. Lauren was then offered the opportunity to travel to Europe to work as a fashion model and spent the next three years working between Paris, Milan, and Munich before moving to New York City, where she was signed to Wilhelmina Models, Inc.
She was based there for the next 20 years as a high fashion print and runway model. She was also represented by Carol Ingber & Associates and has appeared in over 25 national television commercials along with various industrial films and infomercials. She is a vested member of SAG-AFTRA.
Lauren graduated with dual MBA degrees in 2005 from Columbia Business School in New York City and London Business School in London, UK. At Columbia she was one of five applicants chosen out of thirty-five to win a spot through a business plan competition and join the Greenhouse Project (now known as the Columbia Start Up Lab) at the Eugene Lang Entrepreneurship Center. Her emphasis at London Business School was in marketing.
Lauren currently resides in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, where she owns and operates The Edge Pilates-Aerial Arts, an aerial arts and Pilates studio she has led since 2011. She was also the founder and lead trainer of the former The Yoga Source, a 200-hour Registered Yoga School.
Lauren is an Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher (E-RYT 200) with over 1,500 teaching hours and is a Yoga Alliance Continuing Education Provider (YACEP). That conferred designation recognizes her as an expert in one or more of Yoga Alliance’s educational categories and grants her the ability to offer classes and workshops that qualify as continuing education courses for other RYTs through Yoga Alliance.
She is also a former faculty member of YogaEast Healing Arts Registered Yoga School, where she taught yoga anatomy and vinyasa/power yoga to aspiring instructors.
Lauren has choreographed and performed on the aerial fabric for numerous shows, including performances in Greece and Mexico, main stage productions at the Holland School of Visual and Performing Arts, and charity benefits such as Vintage Now.
In 2016 she realigned with Wilhelmina Models, Inc. as an aerialist for the Fitness Division and with her former division, Direct Bookings, with division directors Topher DesPeres and Ginny Conquest respectively.
Lauren is also the founder of Cape Specialty Entertainment Group, a company representing aerial and circus artists in the Midwest. Her clients include Anheuser-Busch, A Taste of Your Town, Mercy Hospital, Procter & Gamble, and Chrysler.
She has produced full-scale circus and aerial musical productions such as Alice in Wonderland, which offers free shows for local elementary schools in addition to its ticketed performances. To date, over 1,500 third and fourth graders in Southeast Missouri have had the opportunity to experience live theater at no cost through these efforts. Disney’s Little Mermaid is slated for production in May 2027.
That work earned her recognition as a Difference Maker by the Southeast Missourian. She serves on the River Campus Board of Managers and the FosterAdopt Advisory Board, and she continues to show young people what a career in the arts can look like, from rigging and lighting design to choreography, performance, and teaching.
Certifications
Yoga
- E-RYT 200: Yoga Alliance
- YACEP: Yoga Alliance
- Core Strength Vinyasa Yoga: Sadie Nardini
- YogaWall: Bryan LeGere
- Yoga Anatomy, 75 hr: The Breathing Project, NYC — Leslie Kaminoff
- BarreBody Edge/Beyond Barre: founder; teacher training created by Lauren Jones
- Former yoga anatomy instructor, YogaEast Healing Arts RYS
Aerial Arts
Born To Fly Aerial Teacher Training:
- Fabric Level 1, Fabric Level 2, Fabric Level 3
- Aerial Yoga 1
- Sling 1
- Rope 1 (PDM)
- Trapeze 1
- Lyra 1
- 150-hour certification: Aerial Arts Sequence — Theatre, Dance, and Recreational Circus
- 150-hour certification: Peak Performance Aerial Sequencing
Charlie Faraday:
- Introductory Mechanics Lab: Beginner Aerial Silks Technique
- Drop Mechanics Lab 1
- Coaching Drop Mechanics
Pilates
- Aerial Pilates: Twisted Bodies, PMA
- Mat 1: Balanced Body, PMA